Action dramas use a lot of tropes, like the near-invincible protagonist, cartoonish enemies, and people who seem to recover quickly from serious injuries. All of these are on display in the South African action drama Unseen, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the show is bad because of them.
UNSEEN SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Overhead hospital lights, as seen from someone on a gurney.
The Gist: The person being wheeled into the emergency room is Zenzi Mwale (Gail Mabalane), who is unconscious and severely injured. As the doctors work on here, Det. Morkel (Waldemar Schultz) walks into the trauma room, very concerned about Zenzi’s health. As she flatlines, the team working on her starts CPR.
We flash back to right after Zenzi was arrested for all the killings she committed, whether they were in self-defense or in a fit of rage. Det. Morkel and Det. Lyners (Ilse Klink) question her after she confesses to all of the killings, leaving her late husband Max out of all of it. She just wants to do her time. Even when Lufuno (Mothusi Magano) visits her in prison with a copy of the manuscript for Unseen, the book he promised to write about her, she refuses to see it.
Despite her reputation coming into prison, though, Zenzi cowers in the face of some of the more aggressive and violent inmates at the prison where she’s sent. It seems that she has an ally in an inmate named TK (Danica De La Rey Jones); she not only protects Zenzi from the more violent inmates in her cell block, but the two of them bond over their huge losses in life.
Meanwhile, Lyners continues to look into the bank crime ring that dragged Zenzi into its clutches. And when Zenzi learns that she’s pregnant, she wants Lyners to continue to investigate, hoping that will help her get out of prison. Another person who wants to see Zensi free is her little sister Naledi (Dineo Langa), who remembers how much Zenzi protected her from their violent father when they were kids.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Unseen is a remake of the series Fatma. There are also echoes of the Fox series The Cleaning Lady in this show.
Our Take: The second season of Unseen certainly gets more ridiculous than the first, but in a good way. It does seem that Zenzi can do no wrong, and it doesn’t matter how gravely injured she is, she can somehow summon the strength to fight off anyone who wants to do her harm.
That’s especially evident after her time in the emergency room. Despite having to be revived in the ER, as she recovers she doesn’t seem to be that seriously hurt. And then, she somehow manages to fend off an attacker while handcuffed to her hospital bed. Sure, she opens her wounds back up and starts bleeding out, but it seems that Zenzi can do a lot when she’s full of adrenaline. When it comes to “fight or flight,” Zenzi fights, probably because she spent so much time as a kid fighting her abusive father.
The first episode has some twists and turns, but it does seem that it’s setting up Zenzi dragging Naledi into her universe, and the investigation into the bank scandal that Morkel will investigate. And TK factors into this as well; we don’t want to spoil what her role in the first episode is, but Zenzi is going to get a lesson in whom she can truly trust. Now we need to find out what she does with that knowledge.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Zensi finds herself at Naledi’s doorstep, bleeding and losing consciousness.
Sleeper Star: Like during the first season, Mothusi Magano’s Lufuno doesn’t factor in a lot in the early going, but it seems that his presence will be critical later on.
Most Pilot-y Line: You are really going to shake your head at how miraculous Zenzi’s recovery is from the injury that sent her to the ER, especially with regards to the health of her baby.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Unseen is an action thriller that leans into some old-fashioned TV tropes that feel pretty silly, but those tropes are used to keep the action moving, which is why this show is so watchable.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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